A plastic bottle boat? What happens when the bottles break off in the ocean?

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A boat made from 2 liter plastic bottles is ridiculously dangerous.

3 votes

8%

The plastic bottle sailboat is awesome and innovative!

33 votes

87%

A plastic bottle boat? What happens when the bottles break off in the ocean?

2 votes

5%

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A crazy and ingenious man named David de Rothschild, is building a sailboat out of 2 liter plastic soda bottles! Then, Rothschild plans to travel upon his boat, with a few crew members, from the coast of California to Australia, a 11,000 mile adventure. Sailing out of the San Francisco, the vessel's twin hulls will be constructed from 12,000 to 16,000 bottles, each washed, filled with dry-ice powder, and resealed. The dry-ice powder is made of carbon dioxide gas, that fills the plastic bottles, and makes them rigid. Then, 2 wind turbines and some solar panels will be on board to charge 12-volt batteries that will power computers, GPS and a SAT phone.

All of this is being done to promote recycling. =)
Is Rothschild's idea for a plastic bottle boat ridiculously stupid, or innovative and creative?

Who was it who said "if you succeed on the 100th try, you had to work your way through 99 failures" (or something to that effect)? At least ol' Dave had the agility of mind AND the incentive to TRY something new!!!

That's a h**luva lot more than one can say about most of the brain-dead schlumps who wander this planet aimlessly, waiting to die!

I'm a firm believer, and a dedicated supporter, of anyone smart enough and dedicated enough and motivated enough to TRY something new, something innovative - THESE are the people who will save our species and our planet!!!

yeah dry ice is explosive mixed with the tiniest amount of water added to it and when its compressed into a bottle with no escape your just really asking to get your head blown off! there's being a hippie conservative then there's just going over board with it (pun intended)

I think it is awesome. What a better way to take care of plastic bottles. More and more plastic bottles are sitting at the bottom of landfills taking up space. Good job, now if it works that will be a different question, but its his funeral.

I was thinking of a little from column A and a little from column B when it came to answer selection....

A little cool and a little nuts.... But what the hell, things are going to shit here on the mainland that I guess it's our turn to build boats out of whatever the hell we can and escape however we can.

Obviously it depends on how he builds it. There's no reason to think that with human innovation in the 21st century, that we can't build it well. And why not, if he has the inclination? Something has to be done with all of the trash we generate.

By the way, it's nothing that new, as children have been making creative-material boats for years! They just don't go out in the ocean in them. Even Curious George made boats from newspapers...lol.

Also, brings awarness to the fact that not many states have return deposits on plastic bottles. This keeps all those plastic bottles out of landfills. Here in Michigan we have been trying to get the Deposit Law that was written in the seventies rewritten to add water, tea, sports drinks, etc. A ten cent deposit works. All over "The Mitten State" you do not see bottles along side the road. A few, but at $0.10, they eventually get picked up!

As a sailor I think this is very cool. As long as the bottle stay together and he has wind in his sails he should do fine. Our ancestors have sailed across the ocean in crazier crafts. The Polynesians crossed the pacific in canoes, so I think he should be able to cross part of the Pacific in a plastic bottle sailboat.